In “Get on Your Knees,” Jacqueline Novak transcends the typical stand-up comedy show by delivering a unique blend of personal anecdotes and intellectual exploration into the act of oral sex, transforming it into a theatrical experience at the Cherry Lane Theater. Stripping away the primal elements typically associated with the act, Novak invites the audience into a cerebral discussion on the subject, humorously dissecting its semantics, cultural perceptions, and the juxtaposition of physical desire with intellectual analysis. Her performance, characterized by self-deprecation, sharp wit, and a refusal to conform to conventional comedic tactics, offers a fresh perspective on gender dynamics, sexual expectations, and the often-comical reality of embodying a “thinking, feeling, desiring body” in a society filled with contradictions. Through her insightful and comedic lens, Novak navigates the complexities of sexual identity and expression, making “Get on Your Knees” a thought-provoking reflection on the absurdity of human sexuality.
* * *
[“Like a Prayer” by Madonna playing]
[horn honking]
♪ Life is a mystery ♪
♪ Everyone must stand alone ♪
♪ I hear you call my name ♪
♪ And it feels like ♪
♪ Home ♪
[crowd cheers]
♪ When you call my name ♪
♪ It’s like a little prayer ♪
♪ I’m down on my knees ♪
♪ I wanna take you there ♪
♪ In the midnight hour ♪
♪ I can feel your power ♪
♪ Just like a prayer ♪
♪ You know I’ll take you there ♪
Thank you. Despite… Despite your warm welcome, that journey was hell. [audience laughing] The journey from backstage to a microphone always is. It’s fraught. And it’s ’cause for me what it reminds me of, frankly, uh, is the journey, you know… [audience chuckling] …from someone’s face, down their torso… [audience laughing] …to their pelvis, to give them a blow job. ‘Cause the whole way there, both scenarios, everyone knows what you’re headed to do, but you’re not yet doing the thing, so there’s just this question hanging in the air the whole way of, “Can she do it?” I mean, “Will she do the thing we’re all here for well or badly?” And oh God, the uncertainty, the [exhales]… the tenuousness. I mean… [exhaling] Can you feel it? [audience laughing] I am gonna talk about the blow job quite a bit tonight. “To the point of tedium,” said one early critic.
[audience laughing]
I think I do it in a way that allows us all to maintain our dignity. Uh, if you’re here with a parent or a sibling, it will be okay. I’m very concerned with dignity. I’m someone that, for example, prefers to call “doggy style” “the Hound’s Way.” [audience laughing] I think the position deserves a term with some gravitas. I think it’s one of our more noble positions. I feel like any of these positions where you’re staring into the eyes of your lover, you know, as if to become one, there’s something immature there, I’m not impressed. [audience laughing] To me, the Hound’s Way, it represents a more mature kind of love, where two lovers can look towards the future together. [audience laughing] You know, it’s not… it’s not sad. It’s not sad that I’m not looking at him, that I’m not making eye contact with him. Because it’s more like… it’s more like we’re these two pioneers headed west. And I gotta keep my eye on that horizon ’cause these are… these are tough times.
[audience laughing]
[chuckling] But I’m a strong woman. I know hubbin’s gotten from behind. I feel him bringing it up the caboose. I just gotta put my face into the wind and keep on keeping on through this good night ’cause our young nation depends on it. That sort of thing. [audience laughing] I do have a sort of poetic sensibility I like to warn people about at the top of the show because I know it can be trying at times. I can’t help myself. Yeah, I used to write poetry in college. Like many, I gave it up. I grew tired. I grew tired of being in a constant state of enchantment. [audience laughing] You know, just so many hours spent curled in windowsills, just the muscles cramping, the eyes drying out from all that wonderment, just… Every night seeing the moon as if for the first goddamn time. I just wanted to grow accustomed to the moon, you know? I wanted to take moonlight for granted, like other girls.
[audience laughing]
I hope you’ve taken your opportunity by now just to, you know, take in my physical form. Uh… That is your right, you know. [chuckles] I take the stage, you show up, you get to look, and fair enough. Fair enough. But it is a nightmare, it is a nightmare for an intellectual like myself. [audience laughing] Really to be incarnate at all, frankly. I mean, as a woman of ideas on some level, everything, everything from the chin down feels beneath me. I don’t know what else to say. “Limbs and torso, there she goes.” All a bit common. You know? The female form, this female form of mine, this sort of sack of sex potatoes, you know, this tits and ass that can’t leave home without, oh, an explanation for. “Why would you bring those out if you didn’t bring enough for the class?” [audience laughing] I can’t leave them at home. No taters for sale tonight. You know? No. No, I like to keep it moving on stage ’cause I know, I know how you people operate. Okay, okay, I stand still for too long, you see something you like, you take a mental snapshot. Who knows what you’ll do with it later? I… I much prefer… I prefer to keep things moving, keep ’em blurry. Thank you very much. Try to take a mental snapshot and it’s nothing but a gray blur. Simple self-preservation. No, I look forward to it. I look forward to discarding the form, the flesh, through death, of course, as a ghost.
[audience laughing]
Specifically. I look forward to being a ghost, think of myself as a future ghost, the body as training wheels I can’t wait to cast off and fly free. You know? Not too free, of course. In order to become a ghost, you gotta get stuck here, and I’ll do what it takes. You know? You know, manufacture some unfinished business, do what’s necessary. My meditation practice these days, it’s getting too strong, you know? It’s getting too consistent where spiritually I’m kind of in a place where I die I sort of instantly transcend, instantly dissolve into the one. And that’s not what I want. I want to linger. Do you see, I wanna linger as me. I want to haunt a house, and I know perhaps that’s a quaint dream, you know, unoriginal, but it’s mine, nonetheless. I mean, imagine. To night after night, to night after night just watch television behind someone watching television. [audience laughing] Just giving yourself over to their programming choices. I mean, that… that would be a meditation in its own right, the surrender required there, you know. I just, uh… I wanna be a ghost, but if I make it as a ghost, I wanna be a strong ghost, a robust ghost, you know. No blurring away at the edges for me. I wanna have fully articulating fingertips. I want to be 75% opacity at minimum. [audience laughing] I’d say 85 max. I want you to know I’m a ghost.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
[audience laughing] Primarily you just wanna make sure you don’t end up as one of these orb figures, uh, the orb characters, they’re kinda the embarrassment of the ghost community, depending on who you talk to. [chuckles] I don’t know if you guys watch quite as much nonfiction, paranormal programming inside the home as I do. I watch quite a bit. I’m a lifelong learner. [audience laughing] But if you don’t know… if you don’t know the orbs, those are those, uh, small, transparent circles of light that occasionally appear in a photograph and someone’ll say, “Oh, great-grandmother did come to the wedding.” It’s nice. It’s really nice stuff. [audience chuckling] But people are so rude about orbs. I mean, if you try to talk about an orb with anything resembling seriousness, they come for you. They simply come for you, you know? And it’s just so rude. I mean, because imagine if you were the great-grandmother and you did it, you know? You managed to gather your strength in the afterlife and appear for your family as anything at all. I mean, a little circle, that’s pretty good. I mean, have any of you ever made yourselves appear as anything at all using your consciousness alone?
I certainly haven’t.
[audience laughing] One of the basic shapes. And then to be dismissed, just summarily dismissed by some surely unrigorous skeptic of a great-grandson. [laughs] I will not have that happen to me. No, everyone will know who’s present. It’ll be, “Hi, Johnny, it’s me.” You know? But that’s not the point. That’s not the point. Well, you know, if you insist on such a thing and you would, wouldn’t you? No, the point is I look forward to discarding the form, the flesh, uh, its needs, its wants, you know, all hideousities to me, uh… I am what many would historically call a heterosexual woman, and no, I’m not proud. [audience laughing] It’s a patent humiliation in this day and age. I know what you’re thinking. Does she even read? [audience laughing] And I do, I do, and yet, you know, how can I when I’m just a… a girl with a ponytail just lusting after the common shaft? [audience laughing] Oh, I can’t believe it happened to me. I mean, just that simple cylinder, that… that familiar tube, that object of seemingly no nuance. The word I’m avoiding saying, of course, is “penis” and now I’ve said it.
And do I feel better? No, I don’t.
[audience laughing] I don’t love the word, few do, you know. A big part of me would probably rather say the word “cock” for you people. I think a lot of you’d rather hear it. The boyfriends sure did, you know? [audience laughing] Cock is a good word, it has a kind of dignity to it. You know, you gotta wind it up and kick it from the back of your mouth. “Co” but then “ck.” It lands. A “ck, ck.” It lands on the same damn consonant it started on, you know? Penis. Penis just sort of slips out the side of the mouth.
[audience laughing]
“Penis.” “I’m sorry. Did you say something?” “Well, I’m not sure anymore.” “I thought a word and I felt something happen.” You know? People say, people say, “Well sure, I wouldn’t use the word penis sexually, it’s too clinical.” I don’t hear the voice of the clinician in that word. I don’t think penis is our most medical-sounding word. I mean [chuckling]… I think the problem for people… I think the problem for people with the word penis lies in its sort of tender emotionality. I don’t think the word penis is a problem for people ’cause it sounds accurate to what it is. Penis. Penis. [chuckles] It sounds like a soft heartbeat. Penis. Penis, penis, penis, penis. And I think that’s the problem. I think… I think… I think the problem lies in the syllables themselves too. I don’t think this is one of these Rose-by-any-other-name scenarios. No, “Pe-” is clearly a problem. Pe… Peener… Pee-pee. You know, it’s been mocked for ages and rightfully so. You know? But to me, the true… the true tender syllable of devastation, oh, it’s the “nis.” It’s the “nis.”
[audience laughing]
I mean, can you believe that’s been there the whole time? “Nis.” “Nis.” And that’s why no one speaks of that syllable. That’s why… that’s why no one says, you know, “Show me that nis.” [audience laughing] Wait till you see this nis? Nis-nis? They won’t even make a joke. No, it’s too tender. It cannot be spoken. No, “cock” clearly, clearly… “cock…” Clearly “cock” is the sexy word. You know? But there’s an issue. There’s a problem with the word “cock” for me. In a way, it becomes unsexy. And the problem is that when I call the penis a cock, I’m not actually calling it like I see it. [audience laughing] I’m kind of telling it what I think it wants to hear. [audience laughing] I’m worrying about the feelings of the penis. I’m coddling the little ego of the penis. I’m humoring the penis. Like, when I call the penis a cock, I don’t throw it away. It’s not cock, it’s cock. “Who’s a cock? You’re a cock.” [audience laughing] When I call a penis a cock, I’m humoring it. Like I might humor my little nephew, for example, or a friend’s son, you know? [laughs] You know, one of these guys, these over and down guys. These little… the person I love and the little guy below them. Like… when I call the penis a cock, I treat it like I treat my little nephew. He’ll come running into the kitchen where the adults are talking wearing a little monster mask or something, and we… we see him and it’s sort of like, “Oh, sorry, sorry… Ah!” and then right back to talking. [audience laughing] ‘Cause he didn’t scare us.
He was unsuccessful in his little ruse.
[audience laughing] And you hear his feet… you know, he’s coming around again. You give him it even faster the second time. “Ah!” Right back to it. No showmanship… [laughs] …and yet he’s been rewarded. Now… Do you love your nephew? Of course. But do you respect him? [audience laughing] I don’t think you do. No, no, true respect… true respect for the nephew isn’t “Ah!” Right? No, true respect for the nephew is “What? No, you didn’t scare me, but I believe you can.” “So… so try again.” And to me, it’s the same with the penis. True respect for the penis, you know, it’s not, “Oh, who’s a cock? You’re a cock.” Right? True respect for the penis is, “Penis.”
[moaning]
[audience laughing] If the penis is enough, then the word “penis” should suffice, you know? If the penis has a chance at being sexy, then the word penis should have a chance at being sexy. And in theory… in theory, it’s enough, you know? You know? In theory, it suffices. I mean, arguably, I’m a fan in the sense that I show up for it time and again with a regularity you can count on. I’m a sort of church mouse to the wafer crumb on Monday morning. There’s me. Sniffing about, hoping for a taste of the divine. So if the penis isn’t the fucking cock, that I feel like I have to act like it is in its presence, but I’m still showing up for it. I’m still a fan. Then what am I showing up for? What is the penis to me? What is its nature?
[exhales]
[audience chuckling] Well, it’s tender.
It’s responsive. You know, it’s like…
[audience laughing] It springs up under certain conditions. That’s why I think it has the soul of an artist, you know. [audience laughing] It sees something that intrigues it and it sort of… [audience laughing] It fills with inspiration. And it is a filling to me. It is a filling to me much more than it is a… [clicking] …erection. I think erection’s a little architectural for what’s happening there. I don’t think anyone should go in that building, I don’t think it’s safe. It’s not up to code. [audience laughing] And unlike a building, it doesn’t… it doesn’t topple, it withers. It dies on the vine. [audience laughing] The penis… the penis, it blooms and it withers and it blooms again. This kind of eternal flower stretching towards that which nurtures it, you know, as if warmed by the sun. I mean, it’s moving. It’s a romantic figure, a boldly romantic figure. I mean, it gathers its strength, you know, to just stretch away from the rest of the body. Just goes for it in this plea, you know. It just… [audience laughing] [audience continues laughing] “Love me.”
[audience laughing]
[audience applauding]
“Touch me, please.” “Touch me.” “Touching you, touching me.” “Quick, I only have a minute.” [audience laughing] Meanwhile, they try to tell you the vulva is the flower, you know. The vulva is the rose, the petals of the rose. You know, the vulva. I appreciate those comparisons, you know. They’re trying to say that the vulva is beautiful, and I agree, you know. But if someone gave me a bouquet of roses and one of them looked like my vulva, [audience laughing] I’d say, “I think someone stepped on one of the roses.” [audience laughing] It slipped from the bouquet, someone stepped on it. Then they tried to get rid of the evidence by kicking it into a crack in the wall. And it just won’t fully disappear inside there, will it? No. And why are the petals so thick? [audience laughing] No, the vulva… the vulva is beautiful, but it requires the kind of tilted gaze of a more poetic eye. Shall I step in? I mean, I’ll give it a shot. To me, the vulva… my vulva, perhaps, my vulva is beautiful in the way that a tattered flag is beautiful. [audience laughing] Its frayed edges telling a tale of how ideals met actualities. [audience laughing] To me, a vulva may be beautiful in the way a burger is beautiful. A burger with all its particular fixings, you know, wrapped up in crinkly, greasy, foiled paper, and then they cut… I love when they wrap it up and then they cut it.
[audience laughing]
And then they go… [swishes] Then you see the layers, these different textures and they’re pressed together. And yeah, there’s a threat of a spill. Yeah, there’s a risk of a sudden disassembly. But it holds. It holds. The vulva is the burger that holds. [audience laughing and applauding] The penis is the flower. The penis is… I think the penis is a feminine icon, if I may be so bold. [audience laughing] At very least, it’s the most feminine thing on my boyfriend’s body. Like, if my boyfriend got out of the shower and said, “Quick, find the little woman on this man.” [audience laughing] It’d be an odd game, but I’d instantly have an answer.
It’s not the shoulder.
[audience laughing] I’d go, “I see her. I see her. She’s right there. Susan.” The name Susan would come to me instantly. His penis is a Susan, but looking back… looking back, they were all Susans to me. They were Susans, they were Geraldines, they were Vanessas. Now, am I saying the penis is a little woman? Well, if you’re a certain kind of guy who really doesn’t like that idea, then yeah, that’s exactly what the fuck I’m saying. [audience laughing] But no, it’s more like… it’s more like the rude stereotypes of women. Those were good descriptions of the penis the whole time. Describe women unfairly, you’re probably describing the penis perfectly, you know. “Oh, they’re so sensitive. They’re always reacting to things.” “They’re needy, they nag you, they poke you in the night.” “Hello. Are you awake?” “I’m awake. I guess we’re both awake now.” [audience laughing] The penis is the sensitive. The penis is the nag. The penis is the drama queen. I mean, the ultimate drama queen. Just one minute, life of the party, and then the very next just flopped over and sulking on the fainting couch… [audience laughing] …that is the inner thigh, just waiting for someone to notice that frankly she’s upset. [audience laughing] Can’t be mad at her, she didn’t make a scene, she just stepped aside. Just left the… I’m not making a face. This is my face. [audience laughing]
This is the face you married.
[audience laughing] The penis orgasm has kind of a hysterical quality to it… [audience laughing] …in the old sense. A proper turn-of-the-century Vienna Freud’s couch. A proper neurotic hysteric. The orgasm, a kind of sudden revelation, a hideous blurt, as a… “I killed father,” you know. [audience laughing] A little… a little bit of Abigail in the courthouse in The Crucible. And I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! And now everyone… everyone’s gotta deal with it. A hint… a hint of my mother at a family gathering. Something comes to mind she thinks to say, realizes she shouldn’t. And then there’s a pushing it down, but the only relief for her is for her to just get it out. I see her coming my way, just… [muttering] “Are you sad you don’t have kids?” And it’s on me. [audience laughing] And she feels better, and fair enough. Fair enough. I get her a journal every year for Christmas, but I’m the journal. I’m the journal, and that’s okay. [audience laughing] That’s okay. But no, I feel like my orgasm… my orgasm doesn’t put it on you in that same way. I feel like my orgasm has more of a selfless, heroic, frankly militaristic quality to it. [audience laughing] I feel like my orgasm’s like, “You guys, run, run!” Like, “I’ll throw myself on the grenade and absorb the shock with my body.” [audience laughing] And then at its most, you know, explosive moments of pleasure, the vaginal vulva complex, it doesn’t explode. You know, it holds.
[audience laughing]
It holds. It embodies the masculine, Stoic, ideal. It just pulses. Doing isometric work, contained and strong. A Viking against a tree after the battle is over. Just pulsing to the rhythm of the battle drums fading away. No, the penis… the penis is clearly the more physically vulnerable of the crotchal items we come across. That’s why I’ve never understood why it doesn’t fully retract into the body… [audience laughing] …after it’s done doing any of the things it does. I always feel like, “Wait. Why can I still see you?” “You’re weak. You need to go home.” “It’s not safe for you out here in that form. You need to retreat.” “Please retreat. Retreat. Retreat.” Sometimes I like to think of it as a puppet at a puppet show. It comes out and does its bit, but after this puppet’s bit is over it doesn’t disappear behind the puppet theater. This puppet just dies over the front of the stage and hangs there lifeless and scaring the children while the show continues, and you’re going, “I feel like we’re not supposed to be able to see that character anymore.” And you’re just hoping someone will just reel it back in or the other puppets will incorporate its death into the narrative.
[audience laughing]
The penis’s vulnerability is something I’ve been aware of for some time. Really since, I don’t know, age 11 when I started reading these magazines with these articles, headlines on the cover, “How to please your man.” They broke the story every month and I’d flip to the article to see if there was anything new. And it always kind of came down to a list of instructions about how not to injure the tender penis. You know? I remember specifically they said, “Careful near the tip.” “It’s extremely sensitive.” “You… you can’t imagine a part of the body as sensitive as the tip of a penis.” It’s like, “Oh God.” It must be very sensitive then, and that’s the first thing I’m gonna run into on the penis, like in my approach. I have to land gingerly ’cause that’s the most sensitive part? Shouldn’t you bury that treasure somewhere deeper in the castle?
[audience laughing]
I go, “All right. Once I’m past the gauntlet of the sensitive tip, surely now I can relax.” “I mean, I’m on the shaft, right?” The shaft sounds strong, but no, they had a warning there. They said the underside of the shaft, the skin is thin and delicate. Shall I dab eye cream on it with my weakest finger? [audience laughing] Dab and tap. We’ll need dab and tap. And then the balls, the storied balls. Endless mythology of the balls, the way things can go wrong for them and it’ll be your fault. The blue balls legend, of course. Cross-culturally it can vary, but the essence is always the same, you know. If you’re the cause… if you’re the cause of an erection, well… well, you better answer for that erection you caused. ‘Cause clock’s ticking and pretty soon those balls down there, well, they could turn blue and I’m just… it’s never clear what happens after that.
[audience laughing]
All that’s clear is that now you’re the witch. You’re the witch. [audience laughing] You’re the witch that turns little balls blue. It’s just never been… it’s never been a sexually-inspiring threat to me. The blue balls threat. You know that kinda, “Oh, somebody might want to do something soon like jerk me off or something, ’cause otherwise it’s really gonna hurt down there. Ooh.” It just turns you into this baby and me into your mama sexually where I have to look out for your potential medical emergency ’cause you know, it takes a village. [audience laughing] No, I… I think it’s the helplessness of blue balls that repulses me. That kinda… you know… the refusal to relieve oneself. If I have a very full bladder, I don’t stand around complaining, “Why isn’t anyone bonking me on the lower abdomen to get the urine out.” Right? I would excuse myself to relieve myself. But blue balls has this kind of… kind of… kind of… “No!” Right? “I don’t do it. No.” “No!” This kind of overtired… “No, I don’t do it… No, only Mama.” [audience laughing] “Only Mama burp my dick.”
[audience laughing]
It’s a burping of the dick. [chuckles] If blue balls are real, then to relieve them is to burp them. And look, I occasionally overreach with my metaphors, you know, for the love of the game.
[audience laughing]
Not that one, that one’s perfect. [audience laughing] The teeth-shaming started young. The messages of “Oh, if you have your full set of teeth, don’t you go in a room where a penis is.”
“It’s not safe for that penis.”
[audience laughing] “Why would you put that penis at risk, you toothy monster?” What’s the idea, what’s the plan? Are you gonna try to give someone a toothy blow job? Is that the idea? The Toothy Blow Job, another tale from Grimms’, I guess. [audience laughing] And somehow kind of a big concept at my high school. The first time I understood this in a practical way that my teeth were a potential danger to the penis, I was 12. I was at my best friend’s house after school. So it was me, it was my best friend, you know, 12, her older sister, 16, and the older sister’s best friend, 16. So the relationship there, you know, is… is over, up, and over and I always feel like Over, Up, and Over is someone you can get real information from. [audience chuckling] I know everything Over knows. Everything Over knows came from Up. Over, Up, and Over? That’s a diagonal… that’s a diagonal wisdom. You go, “Thank God I’m here on this day. It didn’t have to go this way.” But I feel like she knew her role was to teach ’cause she said to us, kinda out of nowhere, “All right, so I guess I’ll show you girls now how to give a blow job because well, you’ll need to know eventually and ’cause I’m the blow job queen.” She just said it. [audience laughing] And she took a cucumber out of the fridge and she wrapped it in cellophane out of respect for dinner, which I appreciated… [audience laughing] …and she began to demonstrate on the cucumber. I don’t know who can learn from a demonstration in this life, I mean, any context, you know, they just do nothing for me. Watching the art teacher paint. It’s just, “Indeed, I… I see why you’re the teacher.”
[audience laughing]
“You’re very good.” “Shall we proceed to our canvases now so the humiliations can begin.” You know? She’s demonstrating on the cucumber and I’m more stuck on what she said. The “blow job queen” thing. Maybe even more the way she said it, ’cause she just said it, you know, she just let the words ring out in the air. She didn’t make a face to let us know that she knew that she was being a little funny or grandiose. No, she just said it and she launched into her demonstration with authority and I had questions, none of which I asked, to be clear. No, no, I mean the first one being, “According to whom?” But I’m not going to ask that, okay. I’m not going to ask that. I mean, to be clear, I didn’t even blink when she said blow job queen ’cause I think that’s one of the few courtesies we can offer nice people in this life. If they go for it and do the impossible? Say something about themselves with confidence?
Jesus, let them have it. I mean, just…
[audience laughing] And don’t act like you’re letting them have it but like, also reveal that you’re not letting them have it… Sort of blinking up a storm. No, hold their gaze and let them have it. [audience laughing] It’s a nearly impossible act, you know? I’ll occasionally say my own name and then just go, “Did I get that right?” You know? [audience laughing] The confidence… the confidence required to say something like that. I mean, wow, you know. It felt like it was a proper self-appointment. And that impressed me and that bewildered me. I mean, I’ve always attempted in this life to err towards what feels to me like a sort of prudent self-doubt in favor of the potentially foolish self-confidence, you know. Self-confidence is a good idea, you know. Yeah, but there’s a risk there.
There’s a risk there.
[audience laughing] I fear that if I’m confident, I may turn into what I think of as The Two Fools. [exhales] Okay, so if I like myself, might feel good. But what if I’m wrong about myself? [chuckling] What are me and myself? We’re just these two fools just congratulating each other. “Oh. Best in the biz.” “No one quite like us. We’re fantastic.” To me, it feels safe, you know, if I stand in the bathroom mirror, to look at that person in the mirror and insult the person in the mirror. Say, “You’re a fool.” That way, even if they are a fool, at least me, on this side of the mirror, I’m someone who can spot a fool. [audience laughing] And then I… I am not, in myself, two fools. I’m a fool and someone who’s well aware. You know? [audience laughing] I’m a fool and someone apologizing for them. And then… and then my duo has 50% dignity. Do you see? I get a guaran… If you split in two and hate yourself, you get a guarantee of 50% dignity, versus taking the gamble of zero versus 100. Do you see… do you see… do you see how… how the math of self-hatred is unimpeachable? [audience laughing and applauding] But the seemingly self-appointed blow job queen,
I’ll take it. [laughs]
[audience laughing] The seemingly self-appointed blow job queen said a couple things in her lesson that really stuck with me through the years. The first was just an offhand comment. She goes like this. “Oh, and you can play with the balls if you want,” and… and then never mention them again.” [audience laughing] “If you want.” “You can play with the balls if you want.” I mean, I’m… I’m still thinking about it. [audience laughing] Like you’re gonna be there, you’re gonna be dying to play with those balls, but you won’t know if you’re allowed, and she wanted to let us know that like the toys in the pediatrician’s office… No, please, those are literally there for you. [audience laughing] I mean, if she’d said tickle the balls, if she said tickle the balls, I’d know what to do. That’s a specific action, but to play with something… to play with something? I mean, that’s an intuitive, absent-minded sort of act. I mean, how does one bring an authentic spirit of play… [audience laughing] …to the balls? ‘Cause if there was a hint of cliché to my ball play, I could not live, do you understand? No! A whiff of contrivance. No, it is authentic or not at all for me in this life. That is a principal I’ve stood by since infancy. Really, really, I was one of the most authentic infants on that ward.
[audience laughing]
It was facade-ville in there, honestly. All these babies. “Oh, look at me, I’m a baby.” Not me. I was just living. [audience laughing] Authentic or not at all, the principle I’ve stood by for better or worse. [chuckling] I could give you endless examples… I could give you endless examples of me choosing authenticity when I feel others did not. I’ll give you one example from childhood, perhaps you’ll see yourself reflected. So they used to make us play this game. They used to make us play this game in gym where you have to dance and the teacher says “freeze.” You gotta freeze in the position you’re in and if you can’t, you’re out. So here’s how I would approach that game with what I believe is authenticity. Would you mind saying freeze for me just after a couple seconds of my dancing? Okay, thank you. All right. Just you, please. Thank you, thank you. All right, this is me playing that game in gym. [man] Freeze! That was an authentic freeze. [audience laughing] You saw. You saw me do my best to freeze in the position I was in. Sometimes… I know it wasn’t particularly exciting, okay?
[audience laughing]
Sometimes I’d see another kid approach it more like this. Could you do it again for me? All right, thank you. [man] Freeze. [audience laughing] Kids like that disgust me. [audience laughing and applauding] It’s deeply inauthentic. It’s deeply inauthentic. No, that’s not a freeze. That’s not a freeze. You didn’t freeze in the position you were in. No, you did not. No, you did not. And first of all, where were those moves during the dancing part? Nowhere. No, only now that we’re all commonly, boringly, and authentically paused, now you’re the big man. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. I’ll bear witness to the end of my days. I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen. But I tell you this so you know. I tell you this so you understand that I hold myself to this same, cruel standard of authenticity. So I find myself asking, “How would I… how would I play with balls authentically?” [audience laughing] Well, I know what I would do if I had two clementines in a plastic bag, and I was waiting at a bus stop or something. [audience laughing] It’d be a bit of this. Yeah, I wouldn’t even have to think about it. It’d be totally unself-conscious play. I think it’d be going clockwise. Not because I planned it, that’s just sort of what I’d be doing. And I get to a point where I feel the potential energy build, and I go, “Do you think we could get one more revolution in and I do it?” Oh, yeah, yeah. I know it’s time. I know it’s time. And I let it spin back the other way, like, this is what we worked for.
[audience laughing]
[sighs] Sensational! The spirit soars into the counterclockwise galaxy. But I’m not gonna do that with the balls, no. I… I wouldn’t even spin them a single degree. ‘Cause I think you’d know sorta what I was hoping to do. But I… I don’t believe the impulse is entirely my fault. I do believe that the anatomy of the balls itself is kind of daring us. Like, I do believe that the neck of the bag of the balls, it’s just long enough where its existence is sort of inherently posing the question of could it all spin past 12. [audience laughing] So satisfying if it took even once and came right back. No, I have no play. I have no play for the balls. I’ve overthought it, some would say. I don’t believe in that idea. But I don’t want to look like I’m afraid to touch the balls. Would you… would you like to know what I’ve done when it comes to the balls historically and presently? It’s not… it’s not great. [groaning lightly] I lift them an inch.
[audience laughing]
It’s a minor elevation, uh, it’s not particularly sexy, but you can’t be mad at me, I mean, I’m helping out. I’m help… I’m helping relieve the bag of the burden of gravity for a couple seconds in this life. And if that’s not worth something, I… I… I don’t know what is. But it feels feeble. I feel like the intern trying to add value, you know?
[audience laughing]
Without waiting to be asked to do something, that horrible sensation. You want to help, there literally is no way. It’s the same weird sensation I get if I try to help a group of people move something heavy, you know, like a picnic table. I get there just a moment too late. The weight has already been distributed among the other carriers so you’re just sort of running along. You don’t have the weight. There’s no way to take it. Worst part, little jokes on the way. “I think I’m getting off easy today.” “Pretty sure you guys are doing all the work.” [laughs] No, no. I will not partake. No. If that happens to me, if I find myself in that scenario, no, I back away. I say, “And I thank you for what you do, but I will not live this lie.” [audience laughing] It’s the same with the balls for me. I become humiliated by the feebleness of this gesture and I gently lower, and I put my hand away, and that’s where I’ve been for some time now.
[audience laughing]
The second thing the blow job queen said, arguably this had to be her global philosophy ’cause it’s kind of how she wrapped up the lesson, she goes, “Look, I just want you to know that at the end of the day when it comes to the blow job, you really can’t go wrong…”
[audience laughing]
“…’Cause the person? They’re just happy to be there.” [audience laughing] Isn’t that beautiful? I loved that. That made sense to me. To me she’s saying, “It’s not technique that matters.” “It’s the spirit of the thing.” That put me at ease. Then she goes, “Well, as long as you don’t bite his dick off.” [laughing sarcastically] And I was like, “Um.” [audience laughing] “Before we move on to another subject, is that real?” “Could I bite a dick off?” And she was like, “You would never bite a dick off.” And I was like, “No, I said could I, could I, bite a dick off?” Like, if that was my goal, do I have the simple machinery necessary? ‘Cause if I “could” bite a dick off then “would” is just one letter away. I mean…
[audience laughing]
It’s right there, especially if I’m worried about it. If I’m worried about it, then it’s “Don’t bite his dick off. Don’t bite his dick off.” “What’s the thing we don’t wanna do? Bite his dick off. One more time!” “Bite this dick off. Bite this dick off.” [chomps] It’d be right on the beat. That’s how I’d bite a dick off. No, I wanna know if I have what it takes. If you found my skull, my jaw, my teeth, the whole thing, if you found it in a field 200 years from now, you know, could you use that in a pinch as a weapon… [audience laughing] …specifically to bite dicks off? The question… the question was, can these bones… can these bones chomp through the penis’s bone? [audience chuckling] [exhales] And she said something like, “You know there’s no bone in there, right?” And I believe that I knew. [audience laughing] I believe I knew. But would you blame a girl for forgetting for a second? [audience laughing] Would you blame a girl for forgetting that there’s no bone in the penis when she was reared on terms like “boner?” [audience laughing] “Rock-hard boner.” When there is no bone in there, and what is there at its hardest, still not rock-hard.
[audience chuckling]
[chuckles] Not rock-hard. [audience laughing] No, it’s never been… rock-hard. [audience laughing and applauding] At its hardest, still not rock-hard. No. No. No. Rocks have certain qualities. [audience laughing] I’m no great geologist, but you couldn’t have a penis-paper-scissors game. No one’s playing the penis. It’s not a good substitute for a rock. Can’t take scissors, can’t take paper. It’d be a 50-50 game. Do you see? No one would play. No. To me, linguistically-speaking, a rock is something you get hit by. Like, “Oh God! Oh my God, I think I was just hit by a rock.” Right? A penis, you were slapped, no matter how it happens.
[audience laughing]
Falls from the sky, it’s a slappy kind of object. [unintelligible speech] Right? A rock is like, “Oh God!” Right? A penis is sort of… [unintelligible speech] [audience laughing] No, it’s like it’s a spirit. It’s a spirit. “Do you feel how hard I am?” “Do you feel how rock-hard this boner is?” And I’m like, “No.”
[audience laughing]
“No, I don’t.” [laughing] “I know what you mean.” “I recognize the change in your penis you’re referring to, and sure, I’m glad.” But no, if it’s so rock-hard, then why is my tooth such a risk to it? [audience laughing] Shouldn’t I be afraid that my tooth, my little tooth, is gonna get chipped on your rock-hard fucking boner? But my dentist isn’t going to believe that story.
[audience laughing]
No. No. It’s not rock-hard. Picture the rockest-hardest boner you can, indulge me. Okay, take it into a nice restaurant in your mind. Plate it over a pureed celery root. Pour the jus, side of spinach, you know, sprig of parsley. Take a bite, tell me you’re not saying, “Tenderest meat I ever tasted.” Callin’ over the chef. “Chef, it fell right off the bone.” The chef has to remind you, actually there is no bone there. It’s a boneless cut of meat. It’s hard in the way a bag of blood is hard. It’s erectile flesh, much like a nipple. No, it’s not… it’s not rock-hard. It’s not rock-hard. I mean, if I had a pebble in my shoe, you know, I’d probably stop on the side of the street and take off my shoe and shake it out. If had a tiny, rock-hard boner in my shoe, I think I’m just going home.
[audience laughing]
No. And by the way, the Washington Monument isn’t phallic. It’s not phallic. That thing’s been standing for 175 years. Do you know what a rock never does? Stop being a rock all of a sudden.
[audience laughing]
I wanna be clear. Maybe it seems I’m being a little literal, you know. I get it, okay. [chuckling] Rock-hard boner. It’s descriptive language. It’s an image. It’s literary language, maybe not our finest, but that’s technically what it is. And I like that sort of thing as much as the next girl. Okay? It’s just that all the language of the penis that’s supposed to make it seem cock-like, you know? Just draws attention back to me to the penis’s very tender nature. The… the rock-hard boner, the… the anaconda, the penis as snake. It’s always compared to a snake. The penis is not a snake. No. I mean, snakes, I’m pretty sure they have sharp senses and at the very least, they’re pretty with it.
[audience laughing]
I mean, I think they strike with precision, you know. I’ve never not guided a penis anywhere it was headed. [audience laughing] And that’s not a complaint either. I prefer a guided entry. I much prefer a guided entry. I prefer it to the sort of, “Look ma. No hands. I’ll find my way.” You know. [audience laughing] “Don’t help! Don’t help!” [audience laughing] “What if I try the same spot and angle again but now with more force?” “You did it. You did it.” [laughs] “You managed to elbow your way in at some weird angle.” “You dragged half of me inside of me with me.” ‘Cause it’s like taking the arm out of a coat and the sleeve got pulled along too.
[audience laughing]
Now I have to spend a minute working that out, getting things back on track while acting like I’m not getting things on track. [chuckling] Trying to line up the silky interiors, not the woolen exteriors. I think the word penetrate’s a bit much for what happens between a penis and me. Every time you penetrate, you penetrate, you penetrate enemy territory. No, you’re a guest in my home. I invited you in, and I made it quite pleasant for you. [audience laughing] No, you know if you look up “penetrate” in the dictionary, or my favorite dictionary, the thesaurus… [moans] I love the thesaurus. I love the way it gets right to it with those other words.
[audience laughing]
Yeah, none of them are perfect, but there they are. The people’s dictionary, I always say. [audience laughing] The first synonym for “penetrate” is “puncture,” but you didn’t puncture anything here. This is a working passageway and it’s been one for some time. You missed the ribbon-cutting ceremony. We’ve been operational for a while now. And I’m not saying it’s this grand open entrance that you could sort of amble on in. No. No. The walls of this vaginal canal lie flat, indeed they do. [moans] Okay. But the walls of a glove lie flat. And when you put your hand into a glove, you don’t say, “I penetrated that glove.” You put your gloves on and you don’t even talk about it. [audience laughing] If you don’t like penetrate, like I don’t, your next option, “Enter.” Oh, the more literary “to enter someone,” you know like, “Oh, oh, the moment.” “Oh, the very moment that you entered me, my world changed and me along with it.”
No, I’ve never been entered. [chuckles]
[audience laughing] No, I think it’s a matter of scale for me, you know? Like, uh… like, um… You know, if my body was a building. If my body was like a store, like a Target, and someone did the equivalent of what entering me is into Target, I don’t think they’re even passed those second glass doors. [audience laughing] I don’t think they can really say they went to Target today. [audience laughing] No, I think they loitered in the entryway. They made those doors open and close and open and close primarily. They were a problem in the parking lot outside Target today. “Penetrate.” “Enter me.” “Laid pipe in her.” I heard that for the first time in college. “I laid pipe in her” and the penis is supposed to be the pipe. Here, young man? And you’re the plumber? You’ve plumbed nothing in this life. I know that. You’re an Econ major and I’ve hated you for some time.
[audience laughing and applauding]
“Choke on it, bitch.” “Uh, choke on… choke on this dick. Choke on this fat dick.” “Let’s hear you choke and make the choke… [vocalizes]” Is that what you want? The look of fear and panic in my eye? [vocalizing] I’ve always been afraid of choking, one of my main fears. Never on the penis. No, never been afraid of choking on the penis ’cause it’s not a choking hazard, it’s attached. [audience laughing] I’m choking on it. I’m choking on it. I’m choking on that dick. Oh wait. [audience laughing and applauding] I’m completely safe. [audience laughing] Death is here. Ooh, death is here. Gonna try to live a long life if I take care of myself properly and make a few good decisions. No. You know what? No one would ever deep throat a gumball. No one would gargle a gumball in the back of their throat. That’s a real risk. No. No. A child’s gumball is more of a threat than the cock. Do you see? [audience laughing] I wasn’t always this way.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] Okay. You know this whole, “Your cock ain’t shit.” [laughing sarcastically] No. No, you don’t start out this way and then feel the need to do this, okay.
[audience laughing]
No, I used to be afraid. [audience chuckling] Like, the first time that I tried to give a blow job, for example, I failed miserably. I backed out at the last possible second before doing it ’cause I realized the essential problem with the thing and it was perfect circumstances too. Really. I was 16 and I had a boyfriend a grade above me. You know, I had the boyfriend laid out on a bed like a patient etherized upon a table his body a slow-moving fog, I guess. I’ve got him on this bed in someone’s guest room, someone’s finished basement. Oh, and I love the smell of a newly-finished basement, you know. The off-gassing of the fresh rug. The feeling the family’s doing it. They finished the basement, what’s next, the deck? Oh God. I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine but I know it’s going to be so goddamn beautiful.
[audience laughing]
So I’ve got him on this bed in this guest room in this finished basement. Someone’s party’s going on upstairs. Someone’s parents not home. So many layers between me and the boyfriend. You know, and my own home, my own parents. I mean, this is as close as you can get to attempting a blow job in a vacuum.
[audience laughing]
So I make my way, you know, down the torso. [audience laughing] And all that that entails, you know, the whole… [exhales] …the whole, “Can she do it?” [audience laughing] The uncertainty, the whole thing. And maybe I took it too slowly, too humbly, not enough speed, momentum, confidence, but when I get there, I am hesitating. I am not doing it. I… [sighs] …I’m hovering even.
[humming]
[audience laughing] And it’s a bummer ’cause I really want to do it. And some would say, “You didn’t really want to do it in the sense of desire or you’d just be doing it.” No, I mean, yeah. [chuckles] I’ve never hovered over a French fry. That is true. [audience laughing] The second I recognize the desire, I collapse the desire through the consumption of the fry, but I did want to do it. I wanted to do it, and that’s real too. You have to understand at this time in my life I get dropped off at Borders bookstore quite a bit. [audience laughing] I’d stay there for hours and I’d read all sorts of things, you know, including these quote books, these compilations of quotations. I’d sort of lock my knees and speed-read the quote books to try to get the wisdom of the ages. When you speed-read those books, certain themes emerge, a big one “Youth is wasted on the young.” And I hear you, voices of the past. I’m not gonna do that. No. I’m gonna drink cum. I’m gonna drink cum in the July grass, under the moonlight, and I’m gonna do it as soon as I can. I mean, that’s what Borders teaches you.
[audience laughing]
If you’re a young, voracious reader, there’s so much passion in those pages. So many lives lived, you know, and the feeling that my life can only be one book at most. So I wanna get started on that life. But I’m there. I’m there and I’m not getting started on it, you know. And why? Why? Is it ’cause I feel all alone before the awesomeness of this great task? You know? Not really. I actually feel the full support of the entire field hockey team behind me on this one. ‘Cause they had driven me to this party on this night to give this specific blow job.
[audience laughing]
Earlier that night I was at a team-spirit-building sleepover with the entire team, and the older girls who are friends with my older boyfriend, I guess they were looking out, you know, for him and me, in a way. [audience laughing] And they said, like, “We understand you haven’t given him a blow job yet.” You know, like, “Why? [chuckles] Is it ’cause you’re afraid?” “You don’t have to be afraid. It’s a… It’s a ‘Just do it’ kind of thing.” “You just do it and then you’ll have done it and that will be it. 3, 2, 1, fake until you make it, just do it…” “That’s wonderful advice,” I said. You know, “Thank you.” “Next time I see him, that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll just do it.” They were like, “But next time can be now. He’s only five minutes away by car.” “And we have a car. Here’s a beer.” I could barely get four sips of the beer down, I’m a cocktail woman. I didn’t know that yet.
[audience laughing]
And they got me out to the car and they chanted, “Blow him.” “Blow him. Blow him. Blow him.” Maybe it sounds like peer pressure to some. [audience laughing] I didn’t experience it as such. No, I experienced their pressure as support you see, because I was a young Tony Robbins reader. [audience laughing] So I knew if you tell people your goals, you become more likely to achieve them. You… you feel accountable. Do you see? I had done the Personal Power series in sixth grade, uh, the 48 cassette tapes. Bit of a close read of Awaken the Giant Within in seventh, and now in high school, I was revisiting Giant to prepare for PSATs. I know, you can’t prepare for the PSATs. No, but you can dismantle the limiting beliefs that get you a negative headspace, which can affect where you land in your general scoring territory, so…
[audience laughing and applauding]
The team captain drives me over to the party where my boyfriend is and on the way, you know, tries to level with me, like, “So really, why haven’t you done it?” “Like why haven’t you given your boyfriend a blow job?” And I was like, “Well, primarily I’m worried about the teeth.” “I don’t understand where they’re gonna go. They’re everywhere.” [audience laughing] “And you know, there’s no bone in there?” and she already knew. [audience laughing] She’s like, “You don’t have to worry about the teeth ’cause the way you give the blow job is you lubricate around the mouth, nose down, grease it up with lip balm or Vaseline or anything of your choosing, and then you wrap each lip around each corresponding row of teeth, under, over and then you smile.” “To pull it taut, so…” [audience laughing] “And then it safely slides, you see. Keep smiling.”
Some of you are thinking, “Indeed.”
[audience laughing] “Yeah, Sweetie, we know what a blow job is. Carry on.” You know. I don’t know. It could be 5% of you. It could be 95% of you. There are… there are no rules, but… When she said it, she was like, “You get it? You get it?” And I was like, “Yes. Thank you, you solved it.” And she had. But it was like when someone gives you bad directions. You’re pretty sure they’re wrong, but you feel you gotta wait till they’re out of view before you ask someone else, you know, ’cause you had a thing, you had rapport. And so it’s just, you know you’re polite and still alone on the side of the road…
[audience laughing]
[sighs] Something in me when she said that… You know, something in me said that… that… [audience chuckling]
That can’t be it.
[audience laughing] This greased up Muppet. That… [audience laughing and applauding] That can’t be what a blow job is, you know. For the blow job to be a thing at all, for it to have its own title, you know, for it to have endured through the ages, and for someone to have invented it in the first place spontaneously in the woods like some bloated-heart cave person who felt this passion the other moves just weren’t freshly expressing, you know. And then they improvised. Like, “What’s the craziest…” Like, “Wait, wait!” “What’s the craziest thing I can do to you?” They thought about it… and then they knew. You know, like, “Ah!” And they knew what they had, you know. And it’s like the windowed envelope. It’s a simple, but elegant solution. Could you have thought of it? You know what I’m talking about? Address, you put it on the letter, then you put it in an envelope. You don’t have to put the address ’cause there’s a window in it. Before someone thought of that, no one thought of that. [audience laughing] To me, it’s the same with a blow job. I mean, just… “What’s the craziest thing I could do to you?” “How could I express the intensity of…?” And then they knew what they had. And it was a risk, but they went for it. You know, they just… [moaning progressively louder]
[audience laughing]
That kind of genius, I mean, it cannot be overstated. It just seemed to me like for the blow job to have come about spontaneously, it shouldn’t require these… these clever work-arounds, you know. These little hacks and the wasting of my kiwi Body Shop lip balm, you know. It seemed like it should just have a way it just works. An internal poetry to it. You know, I wanna do it like that. Like I was inventing it. Like there was no word for it yet. Real pre-printing press kind of dignity. Authentic. Authentic or not at all, you know? But I’m there, and I’m not doing it. And this is when I realize the essential problem of the thing. It’s those first couple moments, I’m not going to be doing it well. Of course, I’d never done it before. Fair enough. That’s not the problem. The problem is that in those moments when I’m doing it badly, I won’t be able to articulate to the person that I know that I’m doing it badly.
[audience laughing]
Because my mouth is stuffed full of genitals. Do you see… do you see? The blow job precludes your ability to narrate, to explain yourself, to provide context, to make a little joke. There’s no way to communicate awareness. And it’s always about communicating awareness for me. You know, I don’t actually mind being a fool in this life, you know. As long as I can let you know that I, too, hear the jangle of the bells upon my hat. [audience laughing and applauding] [cheering] Ding-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. Indeed, I hear them too. “You’d never believe this, I sewed those in.” I make my own costumes, and I thought they might be interesting.”
[audience laughing]
No, if I had a second mouth in this scenario, I’d be aces. I mean, this’d be nothing. It’d be one mouth to attempt the blow job and a second one to go, “Okay. Hold on.” “Obviously, this is not a blow job yet.” “I’m just trying to get in a position where I… wow.” “My tooth has already dragged. Obviously you felt that.” “I just want to let you know that we’re aware of the problem and we are working on a solution, and we so greatly appreciate your patience on this day.” But no. No. You have no words, all you have is dumb eyes. Just the…
[audience laughing]
Just the dumb eyes of someone figuring something out. Just that stupid learning-on-the-job look. I hate that look. No dignity in it, just concentration. You know, earnest attempts at adjusting in the moment to surprise. No. No. No. No dignity. No. No words, no dignity. No words, I see no way through, and so I don’t know what to do. So I just start backing my way, you know, just back up the torso as humbly and feebly as I had gone, and I… I get back to the face and I was like, I wanna do something, I mean, my team is counting on me.
[audience chuckling]
And Borders. Above all, Borders, you know. I want to… I want to get started on this life. And so I take a deep breath… [inhales] …and relax ’cause that’s the thing. You relax and the answer is supposed to appear and for once it did. My virginity, I gave it to him.
[audience laughing and applauding]
Process that however you need. Okay, but for me, it was genius. For me, it was genius. Absolutely genius. ‘Cause I never valued my virginity. Why would I? I’m a self-starter, and I had gotten that just for showing up on Earth. I hadn’t earned it. No. To me, virginity always felt like the house’s money. [audience laughing] I got this virginity here, I think we’re supposed to spend it. It’s almost like, like a voucher. Like, two vouchers in a gift bag in a hotel room, like, “They put two virginity vouchers in here.” I mean, people make a big deal about this, but I don’t really give a shit. But for a goof, we should probably try to use it before we leave the resort. I wasn’t worried about saving myself, you know, my… myself for marriage. If my… myself, referred to my fear and discomfort around my body and yours. For you, true love. No. If I was gonna present something to the eventual true love, I’d want it to be a collection of sexual skills and an attitude of confidence, you know, with which to employ them. A sort of idiosyncratic lexicon to express my idiosyncratic yet universal love. But in order to gain those skills, I’d have to have a variety of lesser experiences. That’s just how it goes. I’d have to have my training montage.
[audience laughing]
Then I can set it aside. Then like the moody prince renouncing his wealth, you know, I could set that aside and then eventually for the true love on my wedding day, you know, my father could present that, you know, on behalf of the family. “From our family to yours.” “I don’t know what to say, but I know she worked really hard on this.” [audience laughing] I wasn’t worried about purity, the idea that with every sexual experience, uh, you’re a little more diminished. That sort of the scratch-and-sniff sticker model of personhood. You know, kinda, “Oh, little scratch here, little sniff there.” “It’s a good time, sure, isn’t it? But yeah, yeah, pretty soon, what are you?” “You’re a faded strawberry in sunglasses. Is that what you want?” What do we do with you then, move you to the back of the sticker book with your slut sisters? Oh, we all remember what happened to your eldest sister, beautiful root beer float with feet.
[audience laughing]
Tried to put her out to pasture. She died under a man’s boot. She didn’t have a stink left on her. No sniff on her, no stink on her, just slipped right out, rolled right up… You ever see a sticker roll up on itself?
[audience laughing]
No, I was ready… I was ready to be a sexually-active teen. And sex, technically-speaking, I mean, it solved a problem, you know? Do you like dry humping but are tired of being injured by the seam of your jeans? [audience laughing] I was ready to be a sexually-active, gum-chewing teen doing the Health teacher proud, you know. And she was proud, and I sensed it. I felt pretty good about it. I also remember sensing the pride of my boyfriend’s father at the time.
[chuckles]
[audience laughing] Yeah, I think the son had told the father, and there was a notable spring in the man’s step on behalf of his son. Yeah. It’s disgusting. And maybe that’s just ’cause I don’t love a boyfriend’s father, you know, as a figure in general. I think they’re wrong and shouldn’t exist. [audience laughing] But particularly in high school, you know. Even when they’re lovely, it’s the role itself, you know. It’s not even their fault. “Oh, hello.” “Hello, Jacqueline, how are you?” You know, “How’s school?” And it’s just like, “Don’t fucking look at me or talk to me, sir.” “Please, honestly, it’s not a good look for you.”
[audience laughing]
You know, “Your son gained access to me, your son gained access to me through his own merits.” “You’re owed nothing here.” Not a wave hello. Not a whiff on the side. I think it would be best for all of us if when you heard my car coming down the road, you made yourself scarce.
[audience laughing]
You went to your little shed and did whatever the hell it is you do in that hideous little shed of yours. If I seem deranged… if I seem deranged in my anger at the boyfriend’s father, it’s ’cause he was a particular kind of asshole. He wasn’t unlike many adults at that time in my life. He would comment a lot on my use of the word “like.” He was obsessed. You know, just like… “Sorry, Jacqueline. It’s just that when you talk, all I hear is the word ‘like.'” “It’s all I can focus on. You know and it’s just…” [groans] That’s all you can hear? That… that’s all you can focus on? Then let me be a cognitive exercise for you, sir, in your fight against mental decline.
[audience laughing and applauding]
It’s the same word over and over again. Block it out, make it white noise. Selectively ignoring information is one of six basic cognitive skills. I see you doing your little puzzles. Perhaps add “listening to me talk” to the mix if you refuse to go to your shed as I directed earlier.
[audience laughing and applauding]
Oh, it was really gross, it was really gross ’cause he acted like he cared, you know, in this way, like, he’d be like, “No, it’s just that…” “No, Jacqueline, it’s just that when you use that word so much, you… you dilute the meanings of these things you seem to be trying to say.” “You sound unintelligent.” And it’s rich coming from a man who, looking back, never once said a single thing that caused me to sort of stir with the recognition of original thought. [audience laughing] He was concerned about the potency of my speech. No. No, sir. No. You have not understood at all. No. My intellect is a river, okay? It’s a river and the word “like” is a stone, and I drop stones into that river to break up the current so you’re not swept the fuck under and drowned. [audience cheering and applauding] I say “like” as a courtesy to men like you… [audience laughing] …because you couldn’t handle me.
[softly] Precise.
[audience laughing] And I know you’re real proud of your son for fucking me, but I’m fucking him, that’s the way that’s going down. He’s not entering me. I’m closing down around him. [audience laughing]
He doesn’t penetrate me. I eat him.
[audience laughing] I chew him up and I spit him out diminished, and he loves every goddamn second of it. Just like you would, you pig. [audience laughing] You pig in shorts.
[audience laughing]
I didn’t… I didn’t say shit to the father, to be clear. I could never… I could never do that to a man. I mean, imagine his face. He would’ve been destroyed. I mean, the way he would have crumbled. No, I could never. I could never. But his son was never to know a blow job from me. That’s something, I think. I mean, it wasn’t the father’s fault, to be clear. I just… I… I couldn’t try again with this boyfriend, you know, ’cause he had seen me attempt it once and then retreat in fear. So now if I were to just go for it again, it would have too much of the quality of someone going for it again, you know. “Oh, nerves got her yesterday.” Like the Olympic skater. “Let’s see. Can she land her jumps today?” You know? No, there’s too much awareness. No. I felt like my only option for dignity was to wait out the year, never mention the failed attempt, and then at the end of the summer send that boyfriend off to college so I could start my senior year fresh. That’s what I did, top of my senior year. You know. I scooped up a new boyfriend ’cause I knew that I just… [sighs] In order to be a new person, I kind of needed a new person to be one in front of.
[audience laughing]
So top of my senior year, I scoop up this new boyfriend and I get him into my parent’s basement, and my parent’s basement is an unfinished basement. So it all feels real, raw, and right, you know? And I decide I’m gonna give him a blow job on the first night we hang out, before he knows me well enough to know my faces, to be able to discern the difference between a mask of confidence and actual real confidence. It’s… it’s a sexual running start, you know? It’s speed. It’s momentum. It’s… it’s about embodying the spirit of the cave person. Like I’m trying to act like I don’t even understand what clothes are. There’s just something in the way of my mouth’s pure desire, even though in my head, I’m like, “Abercrombie. Abercrombie. Abercrombie.”
[audience laughing]
And it’s kind of a literal running start too ’cause I wanna come from around the basement stairs. Already going for it! You know, it’s that old trick. The blow job starts behind the stairs so they don’t see you wind up. The point is you would’ve been proud. You would’ve been proud. It’s just going, “Ah, ah,” right? And I go, like, “Ah, ah,” and I can tell he’s buying it, you know? And I go, “Ah,” and just right before doing it, I just go, “Oh my God. Look who’s not hesitating.” “Let’s take a moment to say look who’s not hesitating.” And it was just, I don’t know why, I just… “Ah.” And then, you know… and… [chuckles] I was at a dead stop yet again. I… I couldn’t believe it. I mean, just… [humming] Again. This is why I don’t trust the running starts in this life. Do you understand? They don’t carry you through. You have to keep running. I mean… This is why I don’t trust the confident entrances. You know, I know you people deserve something at the top of the show, put you at ease, you know? “What’s up, Town Hall?” “What’s up, New York? Get on your fucking feet.” “I’m the fuckin’ greatest, let you know you’re in good hands.” No. No. You see… “Ah, ah.” And then you see it crack. You see it crack, and decay over the course of the show. [audience chuckling] I’d rather build from nothing. I’d rather just get pushed out, like “Hello? I don’t deserve to live…” You know, “May I have a single breath?” [inhales] “Thank you. That should hold me for a little while.”
[audience laughing]
I don’t know why I thought the running start thing would work for me. It’s not who I am. You know? I’m someone that’s gone to the end of a diving board and sort of… and sort of… three, two, one, and then pulled it back impossibly at the last second. [audience laughing] You know, just with a move infinitely more complex than the original dive. And it’s just, “Lifeguard. Clear the ladder, I’m coming down.” “Help me out, lifeguard.” I’ve cleared 1,000 ladders in my day. It’s who I am. There’s something in me that knows that in this life, it is almost never… it is almost never too late to turn back. [audience laughing] [audience continues laughing] But I’m there. And I’m like, really? Really, we’re hesitating again? What’s the plan here, sweetheart? What… what are you gonna do? Are you gonna back your ass up another goddamn torso? Wait out another year so you can try again next year? On a new person to be a new person in front of in college on unfamiliar territory? No, no, you need to just do it. Well, you’re not a ‘just do it’ person. Do you listen to yourself? I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re an overthinker who wishes she had a second mouth to narrate her every experience. Everyone’ll know I know she knows. It’s about jingle, jangle in this life. Awareness! Aware… No, you need to find the way. Well, Nietzsche said there is no way, there’s only my way. Then find Nietzsche’s way. Then find your way. I have to find a way. So, I… I turned to literature. I, uh…
[audience laughing]
I was reading Lolita at the time. It is what it is. And I was very taken with the language of Vladimir Nabokov. I mean, who… who wouldn’t be, you know? I’ll admit, I was probably reading it in a slightly performative fashion. I was reading it, to be clear, every word, but I did most enjoy reading it in the windows of pizza shops in my field hockey kilt, you know. Just cover visible, daring adults that walk by to be shocked, you know, just, “I’m sorry. Are you working through the Russian greats?” “I doubt it, you suburban hogs.”
[audience laughing and applauding]
But I’m there. I’m there, and it’s the same old concerns. You know, no words. No dignity. Looking stupid, sounding stupid, dragging a tooth, all of it, and I go, “All right, all right, “I can’t narrate.” “But what if I imagine someone else is? What if I imagine Vladimir Nabokov is?” “What if I imagine this isn’t real,” you know, “this is just a…” [sighs] “I’m just a character in a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov, then no matter how badly this attempt at a blow job goes, I mean, in Nabokov’s deft pen, would the prose not sparkle?” I mean, isn’t it all literature in a way? Isn’t it all text upon text upon text, you know? [groans] And in literature, things can’t go badly. They can only be interesting. The ways that go badly are just the interesting details that bring textures to the story, and I go, “What if the worst happens? What if that happens?” “Don’t get ahead of yourself. What if that happens?” “What if you bite this dick clean off?”
[audience laughing]
I go, “Well then, you’re likely living inside of the most iconic story in the collection.” “The one where she bites the dick off.” And so I go, “It’s not real. It’s literature.” “It’s all text in the end. Oh.” “Moonlight,” it’s not my finest. “Moonlight.” Start with the moon, yo. “Moonlight streams in on the south face of a young man’s penis.” “A girl with brown hair with red undertones that often go unnoticed…”
[audience laughing]
“…fumbles her way onto the simple cylinder…” [muffled] …penis… It’s not real… [muffled narration continues] …an American citizen… [muffled narration continues]
[audience laughing]
And then I’m doing it. I’m doing it. I’m on that dick! [audience applauding and cheering] Thank you. [chuckles] Thank you. Thank you. Uh, I know it might have sounded a little close to dissociation for some of you there for a minute. Not what we want for our girls. Okay, “Oh, things don’t happen to me. They happen to her, of course. Who? Her.” When things get hairy in my life, I go to a little room in my brain. I might live very small, I watch a tiny television. Only droll things. Oh, yes. Sometimes the little screen tries to show me what’s happening to me in my real and hideous life. I feel for the clicker, and I… No, this was not dissociation. No, this… this was me with an idea. This was transcendence of the ego. Oh. There’s a difference, and it got me on that dick, and I was cooking. I was really cooking. There were no screams of pain. It seemed to just have an internal poetry to it. Like I always thought it should, you know? [exhales] And before I knew it, he ejaculated semen into my mouth as they say, you know the expression. [audience laughing] And I swallowed it ’cause I’m a Tony Robbins reader, and I don’t cut corners.
[audience applauding and cheering]
Now I always knew. I always knew I’d swallow it. That… that was never a point of neuroses. I knew there was an easy way, a difficult way. I’m gonna default to the difficult way to pick up points. I’m a sort of 3.7-in-the-AP-course-load kind of gal. Not a 4.0 in a lesser class, so yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna swallow it and let the chips fall where they do, and it was a triumph. I mean, it was a goddamn triumph. I wanted to write my college essay about it, but I knew they couldn’t handle it. [audience laughing] They didn’t have the sophistication. No, not the guidance counselors, not the deans, not one of them. Not like you people.
[audience laughing]
But I knew… I knew what I had done, and I went off to college, you know, feeling pretty good about myself. And it was interesting because it was a sort of Catholic-ish college. At the very least, there were a lot of Catholic virgin boys in neckties sort of scurrying about the place, scrambling for sexual experience at parties. You know, very crass, not me. I had done the coursework in high school. [audience chuckling] And I’m a Jew, so if anything I felt like a kind of Philip Roth figure among them. I felt like a Jewish pervert ready to teach. [audience laughing] Sensational if you can pull it off. I highly recommend. But at this time, I was really in no hurry to blow anyone. To me, the blow job, it was just a conquered thing, you know. It was an art form I… I had mastered in a basic way, I had a working definition of, and now I can think about how I might eventually wanna meaningfully subvert that art form. I was… I was asking big questions like, “What… what can the blow job mean?” You know, “Can the blow job be a love letter… [audience chuckling] …if there’s enough love behind it?” “Can the blow job be a poem? My body, a crude but ecstatic language.” I was in a lot of philosophy classes, and it was all very post-modern and inspiring. And at this time when I eventually came across someone I really liked, a French fry, so to speak…
[audience laughing]
I blew them, I mean, I simply blew them. Do you see? Not right away, but pretty quickly. [audience laughing] I mean, why wouldn’t I? Do you see, this was what all the work was for. It was as effortless as eating a fry. My lexicon was ready. This was my symphony and my symphony played beautifully. [pants] Was there a let-down after? I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting a marriage proposal.
I wouldn’t have been shocked by one.
[audience laughing] But I wasn’t expecting one. No. Can a blow job be a love letter? Yes, yes, it can. It doesn’t mean that they’ll love you back and that’s okay ’cause we know. We know, we know, as artists, we’re only entitled to our labor, not the fruits of our labor. Yeah, I think what bummed me out at the time was more the sort of, um, prevailing council of friends, you know. There was this sort of prevailing idea, this sort of, “Well, you know, you’re a modern gal so have your fun here and there of course, but if you really like someone, oh, ‘You really like this one, ‘ you said… [whispering] …then you take it slow.” You know? “Oh. Take it slow.”
[audience laughing]
“Good to be not too available.” [muffled] “Take it slow… Then you hook…” Ew. [audience laughing] Ew. Ew, no. No, I will not take it slow. No. The hubris astonishes. Death is coming. [audience laughing] Death is coming. And you gotta try to forget to get through the day. You gotta think of yourself as the lead actor in the television series of your life. You’re gonna go, “They’re not killing off my character anytime soon. I’m in…” “I’m in every scene. I think we’re good here.” But what if you’re not the lead actor? I mean, there are other characters. What if you’re not even in the show? What if you’re Steven Tanzer? That’s an actor friend of mine. Very unsuccessful. [audience laughing] Almost no roles. [audience chuckling]
It’s the darkest line in the show.
[audience laughing] And it’s not a real man’s name, okay? I would never do that to a man. I could never do… But in some ways, it’s worse, ’cause I conjure Steven Tanzer nightly only to destroy him. He lives and dies but to serve as a single illustrative detail in my narrative argument. A fate I wish on few. [chuckles] But death is coming and I have this idea. I have this idea as you know that you shed the form, you shed the flesh and the indignities are left behind with it, but I’m not so sure the embarrassments don’t continue. Why wouldn’t they, you know. I know… I know that I feel embarrassment for certain dead relatives of mine. And really most of them. You know, when I look at photos of them, beautiful photos in beautiful frames, I mean, I’m talking about the real piano toppers in my parent’s home, I look at these photos of them and I can’t shake it, they look dumb to me. They look foolish ’cause I can see in their eyes that in the photo, they don’t realize that they’re dead now.
[audience laughing]
They look like suckers. I just wanna go, “You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re dead.” You know? [audience laughing] All you gotta do… all you gotta do is try when someone takes a photo of you to just give a hint of a knowing glance. I mean, something, just…
[audience laughing and applauding]
Just something that, should you die, you know, and someone looks at a photo, they can tell you know whence you stare, and “I’m coming to collect you one of these days.” So I’m in college… I’m in college, and I’m very aware that death is coming. I’m no spring chicken. So I feel like if I have love to give and this eloquent blow job with which to express it, I’m going to. And I do, and I stand by it. But then I go home for a winter break and I run into the old blow job triumph boyfriend from my senior year, and you know we go to the diner so we can eat eggs at night and uh… [audience laughing] …you know, drink our coffee black now. We don’t need this container of sugar packets. “Oh, it stays on the table? Fair enough. I don’t know why as we won’t be using it.”
[audience laughing]
“We drink our coffee black now.” But we’re talking now, we’re talking like old army buddies. [chuckling] It’s been however many months since graduation, but we’re just talking with this grand perspective, so naturally I’m telling him about the latest guy that I really like at school, and I say something to the old blow job boyfriend, like, “Yeah, I just can’t tell if this guy I like likes me quite as much as I like him.” And the old blowjob boyfriend goes, “Well, maybe he’s intimidated by you.” “Yeah, like I was.”
“Still am in some ways.”
[audience chuckling] “Never really relaxed around you our entire relationship senior year ever since that first night we hung out when you just randomly blew me.” [audience laughing and applauding] “It was just so random.” “The way you just blew me, blew me.”
“It was just… random house.”
[audience laughing] “It was Penguin Random House, the way you just blew me, blew me.” Kept hitting the “B.” Blew me. Blew me. I was like, “Oh God.” Like… like, what did I become? Like, through my fear, I was blinded to the prospect that I, too, can make another afraid, and this is how the cycle continues.
[audience laughing]
But then I was like, “Wait, no. Excuse me, how rude.” “No. Like, you’re not the innocent, afraid one in this story.” “I’m the innocent, afraid one in this story who was conquering a fear on this day.” “Like, how dare you rob me of my origin story here?” “Like, how dare you try to turn me into the scary, slut villain, you know.” No. No, I was intimidating on that day perhaps but… but… but only in the way Batman’s intimidating, you know. You know, yes, Batman’s intimidating, but how dare you. How dare you look at Batman and not remember that Batman’s only Batman ’cause Batman was a little boy whose parents were killed brutally outside that theater. And the bats flew by, so he was afraid of bats. He had to go be in the cave among the bats to emerge as Batman. So if you see a Batman, there’s a fear of bats that preceded it. If you see a strength, there’s a fear that’s been turned inside out. Overcompensation. Same story 1,000 times. How dare you not see the little boy in me? And he didn’t get it, and fair enough, you know.
[audience laughing]
I was imprecise, I guess. And he’s one of these people who doesn’t appreciate when you get up and demonstrate something in a restaurant.
[chuckles]
[audience laughing] That’s pretty much an essential part of my personality. [audience laughing] No one minds. Little treat for the other tables, I always say. [audience laughing] But he said something, he goes… he goes, “I don’t know, Jac.” And he shortened my name to Jac, you know, just to really stick it to me. He just knows me, loves me, cares about me. You know? Oh, he cares. He cares about Jac. He cares about his Jac. “How’s that sweatshirt treating you? Keep it.” You know. [audience laughing] “I don’t know, Jac.” “Maybe a blow job’s just not the way to tell someone you like them.” [sighing] And I was like, “I feel like with me, maybe it can be?”
[audience laughing]
I still believed, you know. But I was a little freaked out… a little freaked out walking away from that meal ’cause what he was describing was pretty much exactly what I’d been up to at the university for some time now. And I started to wonder if perhaps my poetic blow jobs had not been received with the level of nuance that I was intending them. And I went back to school just a broken Philip Roth. I mean, no swagger. Batman’s gone. I don’t know what to do with myself other than walk around campus just being cold, just cutting a lot of diagonals across various quads, asking myself sad questions. “Does your poetry not hold water?” You know. “Do we not get to make our own meanings in this life?” “Are you just the slut who thought the rules somehow didn’t apply to her?” And I could’ve put my arms through the sleeves of my North Face fleece, you know, but why… why, when you can just Éponine your way around the place?
[audience laughing]
And eventually I go, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re not gonna do that.” “We’re not gonna be sad about this,” and I shook it off and I forced a chuckle until it felt natural. Like, “No. Ha. No. Look at you. Ha. Look at you.” “Look at you. You set out to conqueror a fear, and you did.” “You give a confident blow job.” “Just like you always wanted to.” [audience laughing] “A blow job so confident, it terrifies men.” [audience laughing] And yeah, it’s lonely at the top. [audience laughing and applauding] [chuckles] But isn’t that just the cost of excellence? Indeed it is. I join a long, lonely line of tragic figures of excellence. And would I have it any other way? No, no. I’ll take superhero and I gather… I gather my fleece and I try to force it to ripple in an all-too-absent breeze.
[audience chuckling]
But I know who I am. So several years later, I’m in my twenties and I’m in yet another Borders bookstore with yet another boyfriend ’cause would you believe it, they keep on coming. [audience laughing] And as usual, I will give no distinguishing characteristics to the latest boyfriend character ’cause clearly in the end they’re all just these containers for my self-discovery, so… What, you want a quirky detail? We’re not doing those. “Oh, he tugs on his zipper when he’s nervous.” “He smelled like books and cigarettes.” No. No, they got the blow jobs. I think that’s enough. [audience laughing] They don’t also get to be well-illustrated by me here tonight, but I tell you so you know, it’s the final male character for you to conjure and hold separate from the others in your head for just a little bit longer, so… I’m in a bookstore in my twenties with this latest boyfriend and I get a little wistful in a bookshop. I can’t help it, you know. I’m flipping through the Sharon Olds. I’m contemplating my girlhood journey. I’m marveling misty-eyed at the whole thing, and so I tell the latest boyfriend the entire story I’ve told you.
[audience laughing]
And I cry a little. Um… Just ’cause frankly no one moves me quite like me, I guess. [audience laughing and applauding] First I’m moved then I’m moved by the very depth of my own capacity to be moved. It sort of goes from there. He’s not crying, which… fair enough, I get it. Everyone expresses emotion differently. But I wonder if he’s truly hearing me. I say something like, “I just feel like perhaps you take for granted my perfect blow jobs as this given, this crass fact.” Like, “Sure, my girlfriend gives good head.” “But no, that power was hard-won and with that comes great responsibility, which I continue to negotiate to date.” “Did you hear the Batman part? It was imprecise, but there was a spirit…” I kept talking at his face ’cause his face looked weird. [audience laughing] Something was amiss and finally, I get up the courage to just stop talking and say, “What?” And he goes like this, he goes like this, he goes, “No, it’s just funny ’cause you give kind of a toothy blow job.”
[audience laughing]
[sighs] Oh, I can barely look at you people just quite yet. [audience chuckling] Me. [audience chuckling] [exhales] Me. [audience chuckling] No one was more worried about the teeth than me.
[audience laughing]
The Greeks were right. We… we can’t escape our fates, I guess. [audience laughing] I was so worried about teeth, I was the most worried about them. When they didn’t seem to be a problem, I went the other way. I bought into my own mythology. “It’s like the cave people. It works. It’s internal poetry.” And with that idea, that mythology, they’ve been getting toothier. I know it. For sure. Every passing year, I know this jaw has just been slacking in closed. A couple of confident millimeters at a… All the while I’m fancying myself a tragic figure of blow job excellence. This was my worst nightmare. I was the fools. I was the two fools. But I wasn’t just someone who liked themself, a confident… No. I was the toothy blow job fool sisters. Just on our knees blowing someone. “Oh, best in the biz, no one quite like us.” “How will we ever leave town? Into the sunset must we go.” “Another satisfied customer. Another satisfied community.”
[audience laughing]
Oh God, just little smug little… [groans] No. I mean, you wanna deny it, but if he felt teeth, he felt teeth. What did you do, ask for more feedback to try to save face? “While we’re here perhaps you have some more constructive criticisms.” “I simply love to learn.” [audience chuckling] Tony Robbins says if you can learn to receive feedback with courage, you can be a giant. And I wanna be a giant, but who busts someone’s narrative like that. All we have is our stories. With a little term, “toothy blow job” that he likely learned at 14, hasn’t revised even a single time with his own language, just throws it at me and destroys me. And I feel wronged. I feel… I feel so wronged. And why, and it’s ’cause… [exhaling] I know that I cast the most generous gaze upon him, you know? I poeticize all of his flaws in real time. I love to poeticize a flaw, you know? And yes, I coddle the male ego. But it’s real, you know, a thousand things throughout the day just to bolster the male spirit. You know, 1,000 unspoken things, a constant vigilance, sort of. Keeping up a steady stream of laughter going under a man’s speech just in case anything he says is intended as humorous. I have to lay a base… [laughing] …so there’s something to modulate.
“Oh, it’s supposed to be funny?” [laughs]
[audience laughing] Right? If it’s a dry riverbed, the pops aren’t believable. I’m brilliant in a restaurant. You know, if a man I’m with… if he makes an error in his order, like he orders tahini, he meant tabouli, and now he’s confused why “salad dressing” has arrived at the table. “Where’s my tahini?” he says. What do I do? I go along on the mystery with him. “Oh I have no clue what happened. I was totally spaced out like I always am.” “You know me, the ditz. But let me grab a lantern, I love a mystery.” [audience laughing] “The only thing I know for sure is the answer to this riddle, it couldn’t be, it would never be, that you didn’t know a word.” [audience laughing] The D chord. I mean the D chord. I’ve learned 1,000 D chords on 1,000 guitars from 1,000 musician boyfriends. I know how to form the D chord by now, but show me again, bright angel, you know.
[audience laughing]
“That’s not it. That’s not it. Help me move my fingers.” “Help me make music.” It’s a… it’s a vigilance. It’s a child-proofing, just sort of laying down bumpers. Like, quick, quick, set them up. He’s almost here. He’s almost here. Is everything ready? Make sure. He’s almost here. Just making sure. Just making sure, you know, that it’s safe for the man to kind of just… toddle on through his day like a drunken king, having no clue how many times he came this close to emotionally just perishing, if not for my intervention alone. Just getting things out of the way and just watching you carefully.
[audience laughing]
Every guy, you know. Every guy I’ve, like, dated, met, worked for, worked for me, all of them. [sighs] Poeticizing their flaw, and I love to do it. And I do it without breaking a sweat. To not do the same for me on just this one thing? You know, to not return the favor, to not be able to find the beauty in the toothy blow job, when it’s barely obscured. I don’t even think this is a hard one, to not be able to romanticize something as easily romanticizable as a toothy blow job. I mean, have you no poetic eye, sir? Just no clue what makes anything in this life good at all? [exhales] And I wanted to defend myself, you know, you know, but then I remembered that idea that with every additional word you speak, you lose power, you know. The greatest defense is to say nothing at all. [exhales] That’s never really been my power.
[audience laughing]
My power has always been more like already been talking for quite some time. [audience laughing] Might as well keep talking to try to get it right. The courage, the audacity to offer diminishing returns. [audience laughing] So I say to him, I say to him, “You’re right.” “You’re right.” [sighing] I give a toothy blow job. I give a toothy blow job. I give a toothy blow job. And that’s on purpose.
[audience chuckling]
Yeah. ‘Cause teeth, teeth make a blow job a blow job. Yeah. [audience laughing] Because teeth… Because teeth… Teeth make a blow job a blow job because teeth are how you know you’re in a mouth.
[audience laughing and applauding]
Teeth are the reminder that you’re in a mouth at all. What even is my mouth if it does not have teeth? [audience laughing] Just… just another perfect orifice? Just a roomier version of orifices we already have. Just another anus, another vagina, another greased-up tit canal. [audience laughing] Just yet another way to smoothly squeeze a dick so it may feel pure uncomplicated pleasure yet again. No, no, no, that is not meaningful or hot in the way a blow job can be. The blow job, it is about something more, and it is the teeth. It is the teeth that make it so. [audience chuckling] The teeth in the blow job, they’re the seeds in the watermelon. [audience chuckling] They keep the pleasure from being too complete. The teeth in the blow job, they’re the sand that irritates the oyster that produces the pearl. They’re the sea salt in the caramel. Remember in 2012, when they felt they had to go wide with that?
[audience laughing]
Some of the caramel people realized we’d all grown too accustomed to the taste. They said, “We need to put a reminder, something in every damn bite.” “Something that says, ‘No, sweetness is not guaranteed in this life.'” No, the blow job, it is inherently a flawed prospect. It’s a flailing human kind of spectacle. It’s almost a bad idea. [audience laughing] It almost doesn’t work, but then the ways you make it work nonetheless are that which make it work and that’s what’s moving about it. It’s like the little rubber guy in the cereal box, the little gummy guy you throw against the wall and he clings, but then he fails, but tries and fails, and tries and fails, and through his trying and failing and trying, he appears to crawl. And that’s why we love him. That’s what makes him a prize. That’s why we dig through the grains for him before we’ve earned him through the steady, daily eating of the cereal.
The blow job moves me much like that.
[audience chuckling] But at bare minimum, at bare, obvious minimum, the teeth in the blow job are the details that bring the textures to this life. The kind the English teacher promised us would illuminate the universal through the particular. They’re the plums in the icebox, the popping of my “P” sounds in the microphone. The “measuring out of life in coffee spoons, fog curling in the windowpane,” Garbo’s salary, cellophane, Zuzu’s petals. [exclaiming] Oh. Oh. The teeth in the blow job, they are Zuzu’s petals. They mean you’re… you’re alive and you’re in your life, and this time, you get it. This time you see it’s a wonderful life. [audience laughing] This time you see that you’re the richest man in town. [audience laughing] The teeth in the blow job, they raise the stakes. I mean, they… they send a Susan to her potential death. [audience laughing] But for faith and desire alone. And the teeth, they bring a bone to a boneless arena, to the boneless boner. The tongue shall rot. The penis shall rot. But the teeth… [cackling] …they shall remain. The teeth bring the centuries to the thing.
[audience chuckling]
A smooth, toothless blow job, that is a hobgoblin of little minds. No. Teeth ensure your blow job suffers no foolish consistency. No, a smooth, toothless blow job, it would allow for too flush a fit. It would be a round peg in a round hole kind of act, so you and another can feel as if you’re becoming one. No. No. What’s the fun in being one? No, let us be two. Let us feel the rough boundaries between us so we have something to push up against. [audience cheering and laughing] Don’t you see? The rows of our teeth, these are Romeo’s stony walls. [audience chuckling] These give love’s light wings something to have to o’er perch at all. And that’s why we must, we must, we must wipe the lip balm off. [audience laughing] And unwrap our lips from around our teeth and let our teeth drag. [audience laughing] We let them drag. [moaning] And if they don’t drag naturally, we still do it to make the point. [moaning] ‘Cause consider the ghost or the orb. If it were given a mouth again for a couple minutes, it wouldn’t quickly file down its teeth to try to make a more perfect seal with your dick. No. No. No goddess would ever take on the human form unless there was to be some strange beauty in the form’s very limitations. So no, I did not randomly blow you. Bah, bah! No, that was a visitation. Tremble in awe, bitch.
[audience applauding and cheering]
And of course… Of course, of course, I’m not degraded when I kneel down. No, no, not beneath you, no, but through you and past you and before our lives in humble awe at this strange human tragedy. [audience laughing] Your appendage, a small spigot, I drink the universe through. [audience laughing] Your body, a few clumsy phrases into which the splendor of the soul is poorly translated and yet I take the translation ’cause to understand completely and directly, I’d dissolve instantly and I guess I want my time in a body as I want my time as a ghost. [moaning intensely] And the lesson is not, by the way… I want to make it very cle… Actually, there is no lesson. My only goal is to entertain and delight.
I am, after all, a nightclub act.
[audience laughing] But the lesson is not if there was to be one… it’s certainly not, “save your blow jobs, save your blow jobs for those capable of appreciating their spiritual glory.” No, that’d make my tale a cautionary one, and I’ll have none of that, thank you. No, no. [exhaling] [audience cheering] No, no, regard my dignity. No. Might we give our blow jobs freely. Might we regret not a single one. Might we be an embarrassment of riches. [pants] Might our misunderstood blow jobs retain the dignity of their original intention. Might we be an embarrassment of riches like the ocean. Permit me but one last metaphor? [audience laughing] Might we be like the ocean. Does the ocean only lap up at the feet of men of letters who it already knows are capable of appreciating… “Hi. It’s me.” …and articulating its glory? No, the ocean rushes generously to the legs of fools, dunces, cowards, and assholes alike. And it is undiminished. It remains the ocean. I’m sorry. Do I overreach? [audience laughing] Indeed, I do, otherwise why reach at all, you know? And he didn’t know. [audience laughing] He thought there were holes in my argument. Perhaps some of you do as well. I hope you do ’cause don’t you know, I know there are. I put those there on purpose. ‘Cause the holes in my argument, these are the teeth in the blow job of my argument.
[audience applauding]
Would you believe it? Somehow, I win again. And this is how I shall self-appoint, make the rules, claim the throne, but the ecstasy of my reign, ah… it shall be in its very tenuousness… Fuck it. I’m the blow job queen. [audience cheering]
♪ Just like a prayer I’ll take you there ♪
♪ I’ll take you there ♪
♪ It’s like a dream to me ♪
♪ Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah ♪
♪ Just like a prayer I’ll take you there ♪
♪ I’ll take you there ♪
♪ It’s like a dream to me ♪
♪ Whoa oh-oh ♪
♪ Just like a prayer ♪
♪ Your voice can take me there ♪
♪ Just like a muse to me ♪
♪ You are a mystery ♪
♪ Just like a dream ♪
♪ You are not what you seem ♪
♪ Just like a prayer ♪
♪ No choice your voice can take me there ♪
♪ Just like a prayer ♪
♪ Your voice can take me there ♪
♪ Just like a muse to me ♪
♪ You are a mystery ♪
♪ Just like a dream ♪
♪ You are not what you seem ♪
♪ Just like a prayer ♪
♪ No choice your voice can take me there ♪
♪ Your voice can take me there ♪
♪ Like a prayer ♪
[song ends]
